New Delhi – TeamViewer, a global leader in digital workplace solutions, is enhancing Test & Development efficiency for the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team, through Augmented Reality (AR) technology.
In the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team Test and Development Lab the challenge is to quickly assemble complex test rigs. Testing car parts that will have to undergo immense stress under racing conditions is a vital part of car design, both when designing a new car and during the implementation of upgrades throughout the F1 season.
Using TeamViewer’s Frontline technology, the Team is able to accelerate rig assembly for the testing program by moving away from using printed drawings to real-time AR instructions. This manual checking from rig to paper proved to be a time-consuming approach which has been sped up by the introduction of animated overlays showing step-by-step assembly sequences.
“We use TeamViewer to minimize setup time in Testing and Development and ensure all rigs are 100% accurate before testing begins,” said Steve Riley, Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team’s Head of IT Operations and Development. “Instead of referring to build guides and designs which are elsewhere in the facility, our team can incorporate AR into their workflow and immediately see how the parts form that assembly. And gains in every area of the team’s operations add up to improved performance where it really matters – on the racetrack,” said Riley.
With the adoption of TeamViewer’s Frontline solutions that use spatial technology, the process for testing has now changed. Running on a tablet device, TeamViewer Frontline provides live AR instructions, overlaying the test assembly in real space, with the ability to show animated assembly sequences.
The process provides immediate visibility to the Test and Development team on what goes where and ensures that all relevant parts are present and correctly installed.
“Test and Development is an area of the company dedicated to the safety, reliability, and performance testing of the majority of components which go onto an F1 car,” said Daniel Markland, Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team’s Principal Test and Development Technician. “We can now take a tablet, and through that tablet we can see in real time and space a projection of the 3D CAD model. So, we’re looking at where we need to assemble these things, and we can see them in AR.”
The live AR projection of assembly and part information onto the test rig and real-time comparison with CAD data gives the engineers peace of mind that everything is present and correct and there are no inconsistencies before committing to the test, and in a much more efficient way than was previously the case.
This is how TeamViewer has a direct impact on the performance of team drivers George Russell and Kimi Antonelli on race weekends.
“Having a partner that understands how crucial that time frame is to us, is key in us being quicker or faster to develop parts, to test parts, deliver parts to the track. So having TeamViewer know each step in our development process and really be on board with helping deliver performance across each of those steps is massively valuable for us,” said Markland.
